From nancym@pdxcityclub.org Fri Nov 8 17:36:54 1996 Return-Path: Received: from bell-labs.com (castro.research.bell-labs.com) by drmail.dr.lucent.com (4.1/EMS-L SunOS) id AA05343 for neal; Fri, 8 Nov 96 17:36:21 MST Received: from greta.teleport.com by bell-labs.com; Fri Nov 8 19:31:04 EST 1996 Received: from ip-pdx01-28.teleport.com (ip-pdx01-28.teleport.com [206.163.123.30]) by greta.teleport.com (8.8.2/8.7.3) with SMTP id QAA00707; Fri, 8 Nov 1996 16:32:15 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 1996 16:32:15 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199611090032.QAA00707@greta.teleport.com> X-Sender: pdxcc@mail.teleport.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.1.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: aumele@teleport.com, calebb@teleport.com, dsmith2361@aol.com, floydg@teleport.com, frankh@transport.com, gestaltt@aol.com, wayne_lei@pgn.com, marshas@canby.com, mspellman@ortel.org, pmorris@teleport.com, lfred@pps.k12.or.us, mossdtnc@aol.com, nealmcb@bell-labs.com, roconnor@pps.k12.or.us, skoch@teleport.com, stand@straight-on.com, susan_ridge@ortel.org, tbakke@informationage.com, tbcox@aol.com, vmegler@vnet.ibm.com, wbean@pcc.edu, mulan@ix.netcom.com, woodgers@teleport.com, bcahn@bogle.com, lhowe@europa.com, steve_murray@rmccorp.com, trish@teleport.com, cherryb@gradybritton.com, yates@europa.com, nancym@pdxcityclub.org, dmarker@nwppc.org From: "Nancy Martin, City Club of Portland" Subject: Minutes from October 24 Technology & Business Issue Committee Status: O City Club Business & Technology Issue Committee Meeting Minutes--October 24, 1996 7:40 Call to order by co-chairs Dick O'Connor and Duncan Smith No introductions--we got straight to work. 7:41 Pete Morris' One Minute Proposal: The City of Portland has a new department and project, the Office of New Technology & Strategic Planning (within the Finance & Administration group) is implementing their Strategic Information Technology Plan. Art Alexander has a budget and group that will work to galvanize all of the public information/content sources in city government into one system that will allow for different departments and even the public to access information across departments. Eventually, the public may be able to do a host of useful things, including applying for permits on line, making reservations at city parks, and accessing government officials. If committee members are interested, we could look at the content on the system, as well as culture changes that need to take place in city government to create this, plus logistical and technological requirements. Counterpoint--Marsha Spellman, "speaking with passion," thinks that we should not ignore the infrastructure (as opposed to content) questions created, and we should look at this state-wide, too. Marsha also passed out her outline of a proposal for a series tentatively entitled "Telecommunications and the State of Oregon." 8:00 Presentation by Joe Cote, Professor of Marketing at WSU in Vancouver: Forecasting and developing strategy using narrative decisionmaking (known as "Leadership & the Use of Narrative" in our agenda). Mr. (or is it "Dr."?) Cote focuses on teaching marketing strategy to students. In his experience, forecasting has traditionally been a weak point for people. For the last two decades or so, the emphasis has been on scientific/statistical methods for increasing accuracy. The problem with this is that you can't always predict the future from the past; there is a difference from using the past and forecasting forward, and truly having "vision." He mentioned four methods. First, "recognition prime decisions" are decisions made by analyzing a situation and quickly applying a preprogrammed solution based upon what past situation the current situation resembles. This is like decisions made by physicians or firefighters in life and death situations. Second, "structured decision making" uses any of the multitudes of systematic or step-by-step approaches to work through analysis by prescribed formula. This can lack creativity, however. On the other hand, "intuitive decision making," the third approach, focuses mainly on guessing. Using this approach, businesspeople lead by using gut feeling to forecast the future. Of course, this "method" is all creativity and minimal accuracy. These three have a new rival: "narrative decisionmaking." By this method, a decisionmaker will analyze the situation by selecting out the important variables and the important "characters" or "players." The decisionmaker condenses the situation into a story or narrative, focusing on the actions of the crucial variables and crucial players. Once the narrative has been developed and retold to others, a decision can be made about how the "story" will turn out. Just like writing a book, the decisionmaker forecasts the future by writing the end of the "story," so to speak. Making decisions using this fourth method is very natural for people because it follows the way many of us think. Further, it may provide us with an easier way to integrate issues, capturing how different issues affect the environment. We also may be able to make connections between issues better using this method. In order to implement this, we need to look at several factors. We need to be aware of the clarity of our arguments--how well are we conveying the story? We need to make sure our arguments are coherent and logically consistent. We need to challenge the plausibility of our assumptions and outcome (then ask whether they are reasonable and maybe even probable). We need to look at whether our narrative has parallelism: do multiple parts of the story lead us to the same conclusions independently, and, thus, reinforce the conclusions? Also, we need to have our narrative and conclusions withstand counterarguments. Discussion punctuated parts of the presentation. Carl Jung reared his ugly head, and we even paused to consider whether Dick was a good king, bad king, lover, warrior or wiseman. 9:15 Meeting adjourned. Nancy Martin City Club of Portland Membership Services Director 317 SW Alder, Suite 1050 Voice: (503) 228-7231 Portland OR 97204-2531 FAX (503) 228-8840 E-mail: nancym@pdxcityclub.org